Actually, The Coolest Race Car Tow Vehicle On The Planet Is This Nissan GT-R Crossover

If you’re towing your own car to a race track, there’s no better tow vehicle than a pickup. Trucks are designed to haul things, and there’s plenty of space in the bed for stuff like fuel jugs, tools, wheels, tires, and spare parts. Choosing anything else as a tow vehicle would be compromising.

But the obvious choice is rarely the most interesting. One of my favorite parts of a track day is seeing the vast array of different tow vehicles on display. Most are Ram, GMC, Chevy, or Ford pickups, but once in a while, someone will show up with something truly cool, like a manual Porsche Cayenne GTS or a Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI.

I thought for sure that a diesel-powered VW wouldn’t be topped on the list of coolest tow cars I’ve seen. But a discovery on Facebook quickly proved me wrong. The coolest tow vehicle on the planet is actually this Nissan Skyline Crossover that’s been modified to look like an R35-generation Nissan GT-R.

Wait, What’s Going On Here?

Nissan never built a four-door version of the R35-generation GT-R, much less a GT-R shaped like a crossover or SUV. The vehicle you see here is obviously a product of the aftermarket. Raab Gisseman, a JDM vehicle importer who goes drifting for fun on the weekends, spotted this car at YZ Circuit, a small race track just outside of Nagoya, Japan, earlier this year.

From the pictures alone, it’s easy to spot what’s actually under the skin of this GT-R. The shape of the window frames, the doors, and the side sills give it away as a Nissan Skyline Crossover. In America, this car was sold as an Infiniti, specifically the EX35, the EX37, and the QX50, from 2007 to 2017.

If you didn’t know what to look for, you might think this is a factory job. The proportions are pretty good, save for the wonky space around the hatchback area in the back. But even that section looks kinda cool thanks to the GT-R’s wing. Looking at the car straight from the front, you could mistake it for a real GT-R. The headlights, the bumper, the hood, and the vents all match up. The rear is equally impressive, considering what the builders were working with. At night, I’d definitely confuse this car with the real Godzilla.

I Need To Know More

Gisseman told me over Facebook Messenger he wasn’t able to find out any additional information on this car, other than that it’s a demo vehicle for the owner’s workshop. From what I was able to find online, it was built last year by a person who identifies themself online as “President Thunder.” They documented most of the build on Cartune.co.jp, a Japanese site where owners can post updates about their vehicles.

Going by the photos on that site, the build—which seemed to be purely cosmetic—was finished in April 2024. The only other evidence I could find of it driving in public was this Instagram post from a Japanese car show a year ago, which shows the GT-R crossover towing a first-generation Nissan Skyline GTT:

 

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I’m most curious about what’s under the hood of this one-off, four-door GT-R. The Skyline Crossover came from the factory with Nissan’s VQ37VHR, one of the best V6s ever made. Looking at the owner’s manual for the American-spec model, it specifically says “Do not tow a trailer with your vehicle,” which seems more like a threat than a recommendation.

Even if this one-off, GT-R-faced Infiniti had a stock engine, I don’t think it would have any trouble towing a small trailer and a Subaru Vivio, a tiny Kei-sized hatchback pictured in one of Gisseman’s photos. He told me the tiny car was converted to rear-wheel drive to go drifting. Combined, I’d estimate the trailer and Vivio weigh no more than 2,500 pounds, which doesn’t seem like a whole lot for a car like that.

This GT-R SUV could be hiding a full R35 drivetrain under its skin, too. That would mean a 3.8-liter twin-turbo VR38DETT V6 sending power to all four wheels via a six-speed dual-clutch transaxle out back and a funky set of driveshafts. But considering President Thunder didn’t publish any build photos mentioning a drivetrain conversion, I’m betting the engine is untouched.

Add It To The Pile

This Skyline Crossover is one of several R35 GT-R themed four-doors that people have come up with over the years. The most famous has got to be the Juke-R, a completely ridiculous vehicle that combined the body of Nissan’s entry-level crossover with the drivetrain of the GT-R. Amazingly, Nissan sold three of them to wealthy customers. As far as an official GT-R SUV goes, that’s as close as the company has ever gotten.

Unless you count concept cars, of course. Just last week, Infiniti revealed the QX80 R-Spec, a one-off, GT-R-engined SUV that’s capable of making 1,000 horsepower.

More recently, a company in Malaysia has begun to craft a GT-R crossover of its own, using a Nissan Murano as a base. We’d say using that car as a starting point makes a bit less sense, considering its front-wheel drive architecture. Still, I think the world is better off with more fun conversions like this. We have enough mindless crossovers already.

Top graphic image: Raab Gisseman